Posts Tagged ‘William Jefferson’

As we speak, Anthony Weiner is standing at a podium and acknowledging that he is a liar and that all the sexual garbage is true and all of his previous accusations of a criminal hacker are false.

The funny thing is that something similar – not NEARLY as despicable, but in a couple of ways similar – just happened to a Republican. His name was Chris Lee. And he resigned. He resigned so fast it was unreal. And yet that didn’t stop the Democrats and the media that serves as their propagandists from re-using the infamous photo over and over.

Democrats just won the special election for his district. They were triumphant and exhilerated. It was a great victory for them. They flat-out mocked Republicans.

If they have any integrity as a party, they will take the dose of their own medicine.

But Democrats are above that, in the contemptible sense that they feel they are above the law and above any standard of integrity.

Chris Lee, unlike Anthony Weiner, never came out and angrily denied what was in fact true. He never made false accusations claiming someone had committed a crime against him. Unlike Weiner, he was only in fact caught with a SINGLE inappropriate photo. But like Weiner, Chris Lee is a married man. He had violated the standards of his party and his ethics. He did the right thing and resigned.

Nancy Pelosi said she was going to drain the swamp. She never even came close to doing so. We’ve seen her Democrat minions keeping bribe money in their freezers and stay in office until voted out by the people rather than kicked out by the Democrats; we’ve seen powerful chairmen of committees engaged in gross fraud staying in office. Now we’re seeing the sickest thing of all – Weinergate.

Republicans have a superior moral platform. They are superior human beings. They hold themselves and one another to a higher ethical standard.

If Rep. Anthony Weiner does NOT resign, the above statement will be accompanied with the grossest form of documented proof.

Anthony Weiner stood up in front of the American people and lied to them. He proved that he is not worthy of any trust whatsoever.

He needs to resign. And the Democrat Party has an obligation to do EVERYTHING within its power to ensure that he either resigns or is defeated. Otherwise, the message is this: the Democrats are the party of cockroaches. If you want to elect human beings with human values, elect REPUBLICANS.

If the media is in any way, shape or form honest, they will continue to pound Anthony Weiner and the entire Democrat Party with “Weinergate” until Weiner leaves office in disgrace. Nothing else should matter until this man is gone. That is how they have treated numerous Republicans scandals.

For the record, the hated and reviled Andrew Breitbart just demonstrated that he is more honest than the entire Democrat Party. And additionally for the record, just previous to Anthonty Weiner admitting that he was a proven liar and fraud, Breitbart had the decency to point out that he actually had in his possession a photo (apparently of Weiner naked which revealed his face) that he didn’t want to release for the sake of Weiner’s family unless Weiner continued to attack him and force him to do so.

Everybody should pay their “fair share” of taxes – unless they’re Democrats, that is. Particularly Democrats who write or enforce the nation’s tax laws and selectively punish whomever they want to punish for doing the same damn thing they do.

Democrats are showing their true character.

I saw a “Kerry-Edwards” window sticker on a car from Minnesota in my church’s parking lot. And I was utterly disgusted that somebody who actually thinks of himself or herself as a Christian supported such a putrefying pile of moral slime as John Edwards.

And of course, as a backdrop to all this, New York is having an impossible time finding a Democrat who isn’t lower than whale turds to govern the state. Do you want the guy who rents prostitutes by the thousands, or do you want the guy who threatens beaten women to keep their mouths shut and not appear in court? Patterson says he won’t run for reelection, and presumably New York Democrats are going to “hope” for the “change” that the third time’s the charm.

But let’s get back to Rangel.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – rather than make her claim to run the most ethical Congress in history anything other than the total depraved mockery that it always was – instead invented a “new threshold” which justifies keeping tax cheat Rangel in charge of writing tax laws. From The Hill:

Rep. Charlie Rangel’s admonishment for violating House gift rules “is not good,” but his actions did not put the nation at risk in any material way, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday.

Pelosi said it is not her place to interfere in any investigations of the matter and said she would not get involved politically.

“But the fact is, is that what Mr. Rangel has been admonished for is not good,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It was a violation of the rules of the House. It was not a–something that jeopardized our country in any way.”

I remember playing games with my kids. They understood the concept of winning, but they did not understand the concept of fair play. So they invariably kept changing the rules to benefit themselves at that particular moment of the game.

Which is exactly what Nancy Pelosi, the complete moral idiot and chief Democrat ethicist, is doing now. With Charles Rangel, with reconciliation, with health care, with pretty much everything.

Well, it must be fine then. It’s easy to be “the most ethical Congress in history” when you have such a personally vile sense of ethics.

It’s this kind of moral reasoning that leads to the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback. What is right and wrong is however we wish to define it at the moment; and we’ll change the rules again later when it fits our agenda to do so.

Of course, what the photograph depicts is Rangel on a foreign beach, enjoying the fruits of his tax fraud.

And the first words of the article are these:

Nancy Pelosi is protecting Rep. Charles Rangel, who failed to pay taxes on his Caribbean villa, among other miscues. But the ethically challenged congressional baron is endangering the Democrats’ control of Congress.

When we think about the “ethically challenged congressional baron,” we should immediately connect him to the ethically challenged congressional queen.

I still remember the name of Florida Representative Mark Foley even after two years. It’s like that line I heard over and over and over again from George Bush, Senior: “Read my lips: no new taxes.” I still remember that one 16 years later without having to check out the accuracy of the quote.

Why do I remember that line so well? Because it was played so many times by the media that I couldn’t get away from it. President George Herbert Walker Bush had campaigned on holding the line on taxes, and the Democrat-controlled Congress subsequently forced him to break his promise if he wanted to accomplish anything during his administration. And then they nailed him for it.

In the case of Mark Foley, the investigation just went on and on and on. Democrats used the Foley story and the hoopla over Senator George Allen’s meaningless “macaca” slang to paint the Republicans as out-of-touch racist and pervert hypocrites. And it worked pretty good.

You probably won’t remember the name “Tim Mahoney” in a couple of years. You may well not even know about it now. But that’s only because the same media that ginned the name of Mark Foley into a Republican witch hunt won’t do the same thing to Tim Mahoney even though he replaced Foley in the same West Palm Beach, Florida district and even though he did much, much worse.

Mahoney spent $121,000 of taxpayer money to keep an aide with whom he was sexually involved with from talking after she threatened to sue him. Mark Foley, by the way, never actually had sex with anybody in the course of his sexual scandal.

MAHONEY: No–just you’re fired because I said that you y’know … not the judge and the jury. Ok? You’re fired. D’you hear me? Call what’s her name in Anchorage, Alaska if you want to keep on thinkin’ like y’know that I’m not being fair or somehow this is a negotiation. This, this is not a negotiation. Ok? Y’know, you’re not in a position to negotiate with me on this. Ok? My position. Ok? You work at my pleasure. Do you understand what that means?

ALLEN: What does it mean?

MAHONEY: It means that you work at my pleasure. If you’re doing the job that I think that you should do, you get to keep your job. Whenever I don’t feel like you’re doing your job, then you lose your job. And guess what? The only person that matters is–guess who? Me. Do you understand that? Now this is how life really is. This is how it works.

“You work at my pleasure. Do you understand what that means?”

It means that we Democrats can use our female staff like frivolous little sex toys, and even pay hush money with taxpayer money, and Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emmanuel will still come rushing to our defense. You working at my pleasure means that you pleasure me. And if you don’t like it, why don’t you give Sarah Palin a call. Maybe she’ll care. Democrats sure won’t.

Senior Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, have been working with Mahoney to keep the matter from hurting his re-election campaign, the Mahoney staffers said.

ABC has at least run the story, though there’s little chance they will keep pounding away at it like they did with Mark Foley. Who else has run the story?

Here’s a delicious bit of irony that underscores the sheer hypocrisy of Democrats. Mahoney – that paradigm of virtue – was tasked to lead the way in the Democrats’ ethics reform package.

Republicans, and the kind of independents who vote for Republican candidates, are the kind of people who demand moral accountability. When a Republican screws up, he’s usually gone pretty damn fast. The media – and his own party – drive him out of office. Not that that matters to the media, who continue to hound the matter as long as it is useful to their liberal friends in Congress.

If Mahoney were a Republican, we would hear the worst portions of the audio tape over and over and over again while we learned every new detail of the media investigation and any other investigation – slowly leaked out for the next three weeks to obtain maximum political damage. And they would craft the narrative that the Republican Party degrades women and that the Party that nominated a woman for Vice President actually vilifies womens’ rights and self-respect. But he isn’t a Republican; he’s a Democrat.

Democrats – who routinely attack Republicans for much, much less – never seem to care about moral accountability. And the media that hold Republicans’ feet to the fire for much, much less never seem to be willing to make them care.

Update: Mahoney has now been forced to acknoweldge other affairs, including at least one MORE case which appears to have had illegitimate or illegal finances. Again, the real issue is the fact that 1) the Democratic Party leadership came to help this scumbag win reelection even though he’s lower than whale poop; and 2) the media demonstrates that it is a Goebbels-like propganda machine in its total hypocritical double standard over how it handled Mark Foley vs. Tim Mahoney given a sex scandal in the same district at the same time before an election.

I suppose we’ve finally got the properly sarcastic retort to the now very tired Democratic charge that John McCain doesn’t know how many houses he owns: “John McCain doesn’t actually own ANY houses, thank you; and at least his wife, who does own them, pays taxes on them. And she’s not even the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.”

I still recall that tragic day nearly two years ago when the Democrats regained power. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made one of those smarmy, pompous, self-righteous, over-the-top, flies-in-the-face-of-the-facts sort of statements that has come to characterize her when she said, ““Democrats are leading the effort to turn the most closed, corrupt Congress in history into the most open and honest Congress in history.” She liked the ring of that so much she said it again and again with varying iterations. “The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.”

Well, of course she was completely full of what my dog regularly adds to my back yard. Remember how she tried to appoint people like Jack Murtha (the traitorous slimebag who was so ready to convict Marines of war crimes) and William Jefferson (the greedy slimebag caught red handed with $90,000 in his freezer) to important House positions?

WASHINGTON — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd, a leader of Congress’ efforts to help homeowners ensnared in the subprime mortgage meltdown, reportedly got special treatment on his own mortgages from the CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp., a company whose practices he has called “abusive.”

At least one other lawmaker, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., also benefited from the VIP treatment after placing a personal call to Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo seeking a mortgage.

Both senators say they weren’t aware they were getting special deals.

Still, their involvement in a special program that awarded discounts and waived fees for “friends” of Mozilo – first reported by Conde Nast Portfolio magazine’s Web site – raised questions about whether lawmakers weighing a homeowner rescue themselves benefited from the actions of a leading offender in the mortgage meltdown.

It could be especially damaging for Dodd, D-Conn., one of four Senate Democrats who pursued his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, given his high-profile role in crafting the housing rescue.

In order to believe Dodd’s and Conrad’s stammering protestations of innocence, one must accept that neither man understood what the acronym “V.I.P.” meant.

The magazine (this being another big story in which the elite media had to be dragged into coverage by exposure from new media revelations) said other participants in the company’s VIP program included former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and former U.N. ambassador and assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.

A whole bunch of prominent, smarmy, holier-than-thou Democrats, in other words.

Dodd and Conrad made their pathetic excuses, but “An internal e-mail from Mozilo, however, said the exception was “due to the fact that the borrower is a senator,” according to the Portfolio report.”

So, the bottom line is that while the housing market meltdown was taking place, and as Democrats were out in force taking turns blaming President Bush for every aspect of the crisis, Democrats were benefitting from sweetheart deals handed out by some of the worst (by their own charges) offenders of the subprime mortgage scandal.

Mozilo received compensation worth more than $22.1 million and cashed $121.5 million in stock options in 2007, while Countrywide posted a loss of over $700 million and saw its stock plummet 80 percent. The company agreed in January to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for $4.1 billion in stock.

Countrywide has come under fire for its lending practices, including providing mortgages with low initial “teaser” rates that balloon higher than borrowers can afford. Dodd and other Banking Committee Democrats wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in December 2007 singling out Countrywide and calling the loans “abusive.”

A watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called Friday for House and Senate investigations of Dodd and Conrad, and any other lawmakers who may have received preferential mortgages through the Countrywide program.

Souder told the Fox Business Network, “The question is, who are the friends? What is the list? How is it done? What does it mean? If we don’t pursue it, it would show preferential treatment.”

By all appearances so far, the Democratic-controlled House and Senate leadership promise to move on this scandal with all the speed of chilled mollases. They called for Rep. Tom Delay’s head on a platter when there was nothing more than a charge from an ideologue district attorney. Rep. William Jefferson has been officially under criminal indictment for over a year, and he’s still happily “serving” his district (his sister, Brenda Jefferson, just copped a guilty plea for activities he was involved in, by the way).

Don’t ever expect Democrats to live up to the standards they demand of Republicans.

Having said all this, there remains still one more link to be pointed out: the link between Barack Obama – he of the Tony Rezko sweetheart real estate deal – and the man he appointed to head his important vice president selection committee:

Lawmakers’ participation in the VIP program is coming to light just days after similar revelations about former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson prompted Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, to ax Johnson from his vice presidential vetting team.

Conrad, the Budget Committee chairman, said it was Johnson who referred him to Mozilo in 2002 when the North Dakotan was seeking a loan to buy a vacation home in Bethany Beach, Del.

“I called (Mozilo). I said, ‘I’m buying this property. Would you be interested in the mortgage?’, and he said, ‘Yeah. Call these people and we’ll take a look,'” Conrad said.

“I did not think for one moment _ and no one ever suggested to me _ that I was getting preferential treatment,” Conrad said.

So Kent Conrad calls the CEO of sleazy Countrywide fishing for a personal mortgage, and it never once occurs to him to think that the really, really good deal he gets as a result just might be a political favor?

Assuming you believe Barack Obama – who oh-so-innocently received his own sweetheart real estate deal – it is just a coincidence that the man he appointed to lead one of the most important committees of his campaign would be dirty.

In which case it has to occur to you to ask just how many dirty Democrats there are involved in the housing market scandal.

But have no fear: Democrats will continue to lay the blame for the mortgage meltdown on Republicans, no matter how many of their most prominent members are involved, and no matter how up-to-their eyeballs that involvement turns out to be.

If you’re gag reflexes can handle it, you should read Pelosi’s “pledge” of unparalleled integrity and ethics (and note that Barack Obama’s name appears on the “look at me: I’m wonderful too!” line):

Pelosi: ‘We Will Create the Most Open and Honest Government in History’

“Good afternoon. It is fitting that we gather in the building of the Library of Congress named for Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence. Today, Democrats are here to make a Declaration of Independence from special interests.

“These halls contain great wisdom. In the hall behind me are three paintings about government. The central painting contains President Lincoln’s famous words, ‘A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ On the right side, a mural entitled ‘Good Administration’ shows a figure reading and voting, symbolizing the value of an informed and involved citizenry. On the other side is a painting entitled ‘Corrupt Legislation,’ which shows a figure burning a scroll of learning and trampling a Bible.

“It is a harsh image, to see a Bible underfoot – but it makes a powerful point: corrupt government undermines our values. We come here today to support those values, and to lay out an agenda for a new era of honest, open, and transparent government.

“For a long time now, an ethical cloud has hung over the Capitol. For years, Democrats have called for an end to the Republican culture of corruption.

“Yesterday, House Republican leaders unveiled a vague and insufficient set of so-called reforms. What is important about their list is not what it does do, but what it doesn’t do. It doesn’t kill the K Street project, it doesn’t address procedural abuses in the House that Republicans use to implement their culture of corruption, and it doesn’t charge the Ethics committee to act immediately. The Democratic plan we unveil today addresses all of these necessary reforms.

“Republicans are resisting true reform because they all benefit from enabling the culture of corruption to continue. Republicans have allowed this poison tree of corruption to bear the fruit of bad policy for the American people. When a prescription drug bill puts pharmaceutical companies first, senior citizens pay higher prices for prescription drugs. When the energy bill give tax breaks to oil companies already making historic profits, Americans pay the price at the pump and in record home-heating costs. When liability is waived for vaccine manufacturers, companies will profit, but Americans can get hurt.

“The intention of our Founding Fathers was for Congress to be a marketplace of ideas. The Republicans have turned Congress into an auction house – for sale to the highest bidder. You have to pay to play. It is just not right.

“Democrats are leading the effort to turn the most closed, corrupt Congress in history into the most open and honest Congress in history.

“That is why, with our Democratic Declaration of Honest Leadership and Open Government, we are pledging to enact and enforce legislation that will:

Ban all gifts and travel from lobbyists. Period.

Kill the K Street Project, the Republican plan that trades favors for lobbying jobs, and toughen public disclosure of lobbyist activity.

Remove the revolving door by doubling the amount of time Members and staff are prohibited from going from legislating to lobbying. Stop legislators from negotiating legislation, while also negotiating employment contracts for themselves with those who benefit from that legislation. Keep former Members who are lobbyists off the floor of Congress.

Next we would end the ‘dead of night’ special interest provisions that turn bills into special-interest giveaways. Lawmakers must have the opportunity to read every bill before they vote on it. It’s common sense.

“When it comes to contracting and cronyism, we intend to:

Eliminate the practice of irresponsible no-bid contracts, bring criminal penalties against war profiteers, and ensure that the government contracting process is honest, open, competitive, and fair. No more Halliburtons.

Prohibit cronyism in key appointments by making sure any individual appointed to a position has proven credentials. Brownie certainly wasn’t doing a ‘heck of a job’ for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

“These are tough standards, but they are just the beginning. We are prepared to do even more.

“If we are to have true reforms, two things need to happen: We must have strong enforcement, with an active and functioning Ethics Committee. That is why last week I wrote to Speaker Hastert asking him to join me in urging the Ethics Committee to begin investigations immediately. Second, if and when the Speaker brings reform legislation to the floor, an open rule is absolutely essential. A new era of openness can only begin if we debate the reforms in an open manner.

“Taken together, Democratic proposals will lead this country in a new direction, put an end to business as usual, and make certain this nation’s leaders serve the people’s interest, not the special interests.

“Ours must be a government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ That means all of the American people. Republicans have made it a government of, by, and for a few of the people. America can do better. We can and we will. With this agenda, Democrats will create the most open and honest government in history, and put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people. Together, America can do better.”

The Democrats demonized the Republicans with an unprecedented blitzkrieg of nasty attacks, even as they promised to be bi-partisan. But they who were so quick to point out how awful the Republicans were and how oh-so-wonderful they would be have magnificently failed to improve the moral climate of Congress in the least.

The thing that infuriates me the most about Democrats isn’t that they are any more corrupt than Republicans. I don’t know that they are. I do know that the bigger government becomes, and the more billions getting doled out to one special interest or another, the more corruption there will be as groups try to influence politicians to steer money their way. But what never ceases to tick me off to no end is that Democrats are so full of venomous attacks, so full of smarmy assurances of their own wonderfulness, and inevitably always so full of hypocrisy.

The Republicans have introduced some excellent Congressional reform measures that have gone absolutely nowhere under the Democratic leadership.

Barack Obama – just like Nancy Pelosi – is full of promises about what a wonderful job he’ll do if given power, and how wonderful he’ll be. Trust me: he won’t do any better than the Congress that has attained the distinction of achieving the lowest approval ratings of all time.